Pont des Arts

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The building in the background, the Institut de France, is the home of the French Academy, which supposedly keeps watch over the French language (although little attention is paid to what the Academy says these days).

This photo was taken at about 8:30 PM, and you are looking south. There were a fair number of people on the bridge, but most of them are invisible here because they were moving and this was a time exposure (you can see some ghostly outlines if you look very closely).

Behind the right (western) wing of the Institut and far off in the distance, you can see the lights of the (Maine-)Montparnasse Tower office building, possibly the ugliest modern building in Paris.

The pont des Arts was originally built, of iron, in 1804. It was rebuilt in 1883. It was fragile and damaged often by boats, so much so that it was closed in 1970. It was finally rebuilt again in steel, with fewer arches (seven instead of nine) in 1985. The name of the bridge is derived from the name of the Louvre (then called the Palais des Arts) at the time of its first construction. The bridge was designed by engineers Louis-Alexandre de Cessart and Jacques Lacroix-Dillon, and was originally a toll bridge (but pedestrian from the start). The wooden walkway of the bridge was recently rebuilt.

Click directly on the photo to see a larger version (twice this size). Photographed on November 11, 2000.